Being that I live almost within stumbling distance of Upland's brewpub, I'm there quite a bit. But this past Saturday I made a special trip to Upland. I mean, who goes on a Friday or Saturday anyway? I only go on Sundays, Mondays and Thursdays-and the occasional Tuesday, but never Wednesdays. Anyway, last Saturday was the release party for Upland's newest one-off/seasonal/whatever you want to call it brew: a Saison.
The party was cool. Bottomless Saison and quite the spread.
I absolutely love that Saison is now the hip style. I'm not saying that people are jumping on the bandwagon. No. To put it more sensitively, as I am certainly not wont to do, I am pleasantly surprised that Saison is making a resurgence among craft brewers. Several breweries on both coasts have been making rather tasty examples now for several years, namely Ommegang in Cooperstown New York, McKenzie's in SE Pennsylvania, Southampton on Long Island and Pizza Port in Southern California. The famous Belgian archetypes of the style, from breweries such as Dupont and Vapeur, and the more obscure and artisan offerings from Fantome, have become widely available in recent years. Here in Indiana, Oaken Barrel released their Saison just a couple weeks ago (I'd love to get a bottle if anybody wants to send the "staff" one-or three) and a couple other breweries have brewed their own interpretations over the last couple of years.
Cocktail Burgers and plenty of Saison apparently makes you really strong.
Upland Saison takes a bit of detour from the traditional interpretation what with all the spices and the blending, but that's ok. Saison is a notoriously difficult style to pin down.
According to the recent book Farmhouse Ales: Culture and Craftsmanship in the Belgian Tradition, authors Phil Markowski, Tomme Arthur and Yvan De Baets write that the Saison style isn't so much unified by brewing methods, ingredients and flavor profile as it is by a common historical role in the agrarian society of Wallonia and Hainut in southern Belgium. Saison was traditionally made to provide a safe source of hydration and even nourishment for field laborers during the Summer months. According to Farmhouse Ales, Saison was brewed at the beginning of Winter. In order to keep the several months until consumption without modern sanitation and refrigeration, the beers were brewed to a higher than normal ABV and generously hopped.
I find this interpretation to be problematic, however. Laborers would certainly prefer a lighter ale to slake their thirst. A ìkeeping aleî, beer that could be stored for long periods of time, was undoubtedly too heavy in taste and high in alcohol to permit the consumption of five liters a day in the fields. This estimate is cited in Farmhouse Ales. and probably represents the upper limit of beer consumption. In Country House Brewing in England, 1500-1900, a more thoroughly researched book, Pamela Sambrook cites a record from 1829 that shows the laborers who were ìhaymakingî were allowed one and one half liters of beer a day while those "mowing barley" were allowed three liters a day. This seems to be a more reasonable estimate.
Sambrook clearly shows that in England, laborers were consuming "small beer". This beer was quite light, weighing in around 3% ABV. It seems unlikely that Belgian laborers simply had higher tolerances that permitted them to consume five liters of 5-7% ABV ìkeeping beerî per day.
But I digress.
Whatever the case may be, the modern day Saison is a slightly more coherent style. The Great American Beer Festival style guidelines require that Saison be a rather pale beer with noticeable yeast contributed character and oftentimes spiced, between 4.5-9% ABV. That's quite the latitude in alcohol content. 
Upland head brewer Caleb Staton takes his interpretation headlong in the spice dimension. The spices include star anise, black pepper, coriander, grains of paradise and orange peel. They also threw in 30lbs of honey for good measure. It weighs in at a reasonable 5.5% ABV and is really quite drinkable. The spice profile is certainly what stands out, particularly the anise and the pepper, but it is well integrated and not overwhelming.
Head brewer Caleb Staton (far right) talks about the brew.
This was certainly not the case with the original beer straight from the fermenters. This beer, which Caleb has dubbed 'Queen Bee', is really overwhelming. Massive anise and black pepper. Really potent stuff, far too potent to sell 25bbls of in any reasonable amount of time. So Caleb, being the smart guy that he is, blended Queen Bee with some of Upland's tasty Wheat beer (actually a Belgian Witbier style) thus resulting in the Bumblebee Saison that was released last Saturday.
I think this is pretty cool. Definitely in the artisan farmhouse tradition where blending was the norm, not the exception. I think the final product came out quite nicely and I think it was pretty lucky that Upland had a brew such as their Wheat to blend with. The two go perfectly together.
Upland's Bumblebee Saison is only available on draft so look for it at your favorite pub. If you want to be sure to try it, come on down to Bloomington and give it a whirl.
Front of house manager Adam Wason tending the grill/smoker?
I should also mention that this year's batch of Oktoberfest is awesome. I got to try some straight out of the tanks and it is one delectable beer. That is to be released on October 1st.
Until next time, buy some Saison and drink it as you toil in the fields. Or not. I mean, it might be more enjoyable if you just drink them inside and use water to slake your thirst as you toil in the fields, but really it's up to you.
